JSONFormatElements and JSON pretty-printing

Beginner

Use JSONFormatElements to produce human-readable indented JSON, and understand when compact vs. formatted output is appropriate.

What you'll learn

How JSONFormatElements() formats a JSON string
When to use formatted JSON vs. compact JSON
How to verify JSON validity using JSONFormatElements
How to build and inspect nested JSON structures

FileMaker stores and transmits JSON as compact single-line strings, which are efficient but unreadable when debugging. JSONFormatElements() reformats any valid JSON string with proper indentation, making it easy to inspect in a field or script variable. Knowing when to use formatted vs. compact JSON is important for both debugging and API integration work.

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JSONFormatElements basic usage

Pass any valid JSON string to JSONFormatElements() and it returns an indented, human-readable version. If the JSON is invalid, it returns "?".

FileMaker Script

Let ( raw = '{"name":"Agnes","role":"admin","active":true}' ;
  JSONFormatElements ( raw )
)
// Returns:
// {
//   "name" : "Agnes",
//   "role" : "admin",
//   "active" : true
// }

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